[BoulderCouncilHotline] October 2021 article in The Atlantic regarding growing methamphetamine impacts

[Weaver, Sam]

Colleagues, Council members Elect, Community,
This HOTLINE post is being sent jointly by Mary Young and Sam Weaver.
The link below is to an article we received last week in our Council email. Some of you may have already read it. The article is stunningly eye-opening about very recent macro changes which are currently impacting our community.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/
An excerpt: "Once your eyes are open to the scale and human consequences of the P2P-meth epidemic, it's hard to miss its ramifications in many areas of American public life. Perhaps the most significant is homelessness."
The ramifications of changes in illegal synthetic drug manufacturing and distribution include increased mental impairment and desperation among users. This article dives deeply into the impacts on vulnerable individuals, communities and service providers and includes input from current and former users as well as addiction specialists. The descriptions of behaviors that accompany the change in drug potency, its wide availability and low cost are disturbing and all too familiar.
We urge everyone interested in homelessness, public safety, and addiction recovery to please read the article to inform discussions and direction on approaches to homelessness in Boulder.  Without consideration of the information summarized in this article, proposed solutions will not account for the very recent and incredibly detrimental changes that have occurred in the context of street homelessness in the United States. These changes appear to have started gathering momentum around 2012 and continue worsening even today.
We'd also like to take this opportunity to thank our community for entrusting us with the temporary stewardship of this beautiful place we all call home. It wasn't always easy, but it was always an honor and a job that we took very seriously.
We wish the incoming council many successes and the wisdom acquired from keeping an open mind.
"See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting." - Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
With deepest regards,
Mary Young and Sam Weaver

Sam Weaver

[cid:image001.png at 01D7D92C.45C64890]

weavers at bouldercolorado.gov
Phone: 303-416-6130

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